lO Brewster oh Bird^ of Berkshire Conntv. Mass. [ January 



What with porcupines, Logcocks, Mourning Warblers, moose- 

 wood ( Viburnum laiitanoides^^ and every now and then a moun- 

 tain butterfly alighting for a moment in the path before me and 

 slowly opening and closing its velvety wings, I found it diflicult 

 to believe that I was really in my native State, and not in some 

 retired forest of northern Maine or New Hampshire. 



The Hermit Thrush might perhaps be mentioned in this con- 

 nection, for I occasionally caught the tones of his bell-like voice 

 stealing down from some elevated point on the mountain side. But 

 he did not properly belong among the dwellers of the glen, any more 

 than did a Golden Eagle, which I saw one day circling high 

 above it. These Eagles, by the way, are apparently far from rare 

 here, for the musevmi at William's College* contains no less than 

 four specimens v»^hich have been taken near Williamstown, and 

 the farmers in the ''Hopper" assured me that the bird breeds 

 everv season on Graylock. 



Mt. Graylock. While in the "Hopper" I often looked longing- 

 ly up at the dai'k spruce forest on the brow of Graylock. feeling 

 sure that it must shelter many of the birds of which I was in 

 search ; but the western approaches to the summit of that moun- 

 tain ai"e so steep and difficult that I decided to finish the low coun- 

 try first and make the ascent from Adams, on the eastern side. 

 The day chosen for this undertaking (Jime 28) proved excep- 

 tionally favorable ; there had been rain over night, and through the 

 forenoon great ragged clouds — the afterbirth of the storm — trailed 

 their cooling shadows across the landscape, while occasional 

 showers, followed by intervals of sunshine, completed the condi- 

 tions for one of those rare days when birds sing almost uninter- 

 ruptedly from daylight until dark. It was so still, too, that their 

 songs could be heard at unusual distances. 



I started earlv. on horseback, taking an assistant to look after 

 the animals, as well as to assist at removing obstructions in the 

 old and now nearly obliterated bridle path. For the first mile or 

 two the way led through a succession of steep pastures more or 

 less grown up to shrubby spruces, with occasional thickets of 

 young beeches and, along the streams, some larger beeches, sugar 

 inaples, and birches {Betula hitea et papyracea) . The charac- 



* There are also two Williamstown Ravens in this collection, one taken in 1877, the 

 other without a date; and a Bohemian Waxwing marked simply "Male, Williamstown, 

 Mass." 



